Glass Colours and Tints

Does glass come in different glass colours and tints?

We often get asked whether the glass we supply is coloured. Well, the short answer is no, we don’t generally supply glass generally that has gone through any type of coloration process. However, some ‘clear’ glass can often appear to have a colour or tint in certain lights and angles as the light refracts through the panel. A lot of the glass that is manufactured today is made to suit budgets, and with economies of scale this type of manufacturing takes priority. There are options of course to have a glass that appears to be much clearer than most of the toughened glass on the market.

The clear glass that we are talking about here has many names which are generally brand names attached to the manufacturer. Ones we have seen on the market are Starphire, UltraClear, Optiwhite, Starwhite and Krystal Klear just to name a few. Basically, the process of making this very clear glass starts in the manufacturing process. Normal toughened glass will generally have a slight green tint to it. This is not always obvious to the naked eye when looking straight at a panel. It becomes more apparent when you look down an edge of the glass, this is where it may look quite green.

Quite often to the untrained eye, all the glass will look clear, until you put a piece of the ultra-clear (not a brand name) up next to the standard glass. Ultra-clear glass is a result of the manufacturer reducing the amount of iron content in the glass. That’s right iron in the glass. Iron is a very important part of the manufacturing process with glass and with low iron glass the process requires Silica, a mineral found in sand.

Due to the small amounts of demand of any type of ultra-clear glass in the past the actual product can end up being a lot more expensive. In some cases, three or four time the cost of a standard toughened panel. There is some good news for those people who want to have clear glass pool fences. Completely clear glass, due to its ability to hold heat longer has emerged into the market because of an increase in clear glass demand – which is a result of the burgeoning solar panel industry. It is the preferred choice for solar panel glass and for this reason we may see manufacturing costs decrease in the future because of this increase in demand.

Absolut Custom Glass Systems is more than happy to cater to your every desire, and we have the capacity to create special orders for this type of ultra-clear glass, but due to its higher cost it has sparked little interest from our customers. As mentioned above, this may change in the next couple of years if global demand for this product increases. If you really want to have a frameless glass pool fence or balustrade in this type of glass, we invite you to make an enquiry through our website. We can supply and install an ultra-clear glass for you, of course there will be an extra cost involved, but we will do our best to make it as affordable as possible.

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